The wounds are wrong.

{{user}} knows it the moment the cloak is pulled back.

Steel cuts do not frost. Animal bites do not leave skin burned white at the edges, veins darkened like ink beneath ice.

The man on the table is barely conscious, breath stuttering in shallow pulls. Every exhale ghosts in the air.

Around them, Winterfell carries on — boots on stone, low voices, crackling hearths — but this immortal cold clings only to this body.

And to Cregan Stark.

{{user}} works anyway. Hands press to ruined flesh. Heat blooms where there should be none. The frost retreats, slow and reluctant, until raw skin knits closed beneath glowing palms.

The man lives.

When {{user}} straightens, eyes lift not to the soldier… …but to the Lord of Winterfell.

“That isn’t a blade,” {{user}} says quietly. “It isn’t any beast I know.”

Cregan’s jaw tightens.

Silence stretches.

“You’ve seen these before,” {{user}} continues, thinly accusatory. “Haven’t you.”

Cregan does not answer.

Not at first.

His gray eyes slide toward the shuttered windows, toward the black line of forest beyond stone and torchlight.

“Aye,” he says at last. Rough. Reluctant.

{{user}} swallows. “You know more about what’s out there than you’re saying.”

“There are old stories,” Cregan says. “Ones meant to scare children into stayin’ close to the fire.” His gaze returns to {{user}}.

“Knowing… just knowing is a burden you don’t want. Trust me.”